Choose your own adventure

I went to San Diego this past long weekend and managed to do nothing but eat and drink for three days straight. It was, as you might imagine, my dream vacation and I wish that there were more 3 day weekends each year. Oh if only every weekend were three days. But I digress.

I used to love those choose your own adventure books. I hear they don't really make them anymore and I'm sad to hear it, although I can see why they might stop making them. I will sort of forever be haunted by the Apollo 13 choose your own adventure book in which I died in space more than once.

Did anyone really read those books the way they were supposed to be read? I never committed to a page choice until I had read ahead to make sure that page 14 was not the one where the space ship crashed and I died. I always held my finger on page 37, just in case I needed to jump back and make a different choice. I always felt it wasn't a real choice until you let go of the previous page. Sometimes I had my fingers holding several pages open at once so that I could try all the possible options.

Actually, come to think of it, those books made me really nervous. It brought a whole new possibility of failure to the reading experience. Instead of being guided by an author to a logical conclusion, danger lurked around every page turn. And choices that seemed like the right one often led to a hole in the space ship that killed you instantly (can you tell I was really hung up on the Apollo 13 book?)


I was going to say that the way I read those books is a great metaphor for how I live my life. But in fact, life IS a choose your own adventure novel. It's not even a metaphor. We DO choose our own adventures. And if you keep your finger on the earlier page you can't really move on to the next choice. Deep huh?

Anyway, I've been thinking about that a lot lately. The way we need to choose our own paths. I've been feeling like I'm at one of those turn the page moments and I'm not sure which page to turn to. The old anxiety is back...which choice leads to a happy ending and which one leads to certain death??!!

You are feeling fat and unmotivated. Your commute is stressful. Your weight watchers membership comes with great recipes and food plan ideas, but you've been watching your favorite TV show, and the lead female makes you want to work out and get toned. However, you aren't sure you can make time to exercise on top of your busy schedule. You also feel like perhaps graduate school would be a good idea before you get too old. Plus then you would have more time to work out. And you keep looking at apartments online, thinking that if you live closer to work, you will feel better about life in general.

If you choose to start tracking your food and eating extremely well despite temptations, turn to page 13.

If you choose to start exercising with your library of exercise videos each morning, turn to page 42.

If you choose to reinstate your gym membership and start going to the gym each night turn to page 12.

If you decide to forget about weight loss and apply to graduate creative writing programs, turn to page 45.

If you decide to find an apartment first, turn to page 34.

What to do? Perhaps no choice at all....